ReadingRate · What's new · 2026-08-13
The 100 best books, ranked — with difficulty scores
ReadingRate's 100 best books is ranked on literary-regard data — canonical standing, critical acclaim and influence — rather than user star ratings, and every entry carries a difficulty score so you can pick a great book you'll actually finish. Beside the main hundred there are 104 further lists: the best books by women, by country, by original language, by genre, by reading domain, and the easiest and the hardest to read. Each list can be looked at four ways: by difficulty, through time, on a map of where its authors were born, and by which books descend from which.
Available on web.
Any best-books list is an argument, and most hide theirs. This one states its basis: measurable literary regard, which is why it reads more like a university reading list than a bestseller chart.
The difficulty scores are what make it usable rather than aspirational. Sorting acclaimed books by how hard they are turns a list of things you ought to have read into a list of things you could start tonight. Every list names three places to start: its most approachable books that still carry top regard.
The further lists cover fourteen countries, eight original languages, twenty-eight genres and forty-nine reading domains, plus two lists by difficulty. Any other combination of filters still works and can be shared as a link; it just does not get a page of its own.
The four views rearrange one field of stars. By difficulty places each book by how hard it is. Through time places it by the year it was written. On the map puts it where its author was born. Lines of descent draws the links the catalogue records between the list's books — which ones a book was inspired by, and which it inspires.
Hours are shown at an average pace until you choose slow, average or fast, and you can tick the books you have read without an account.
What it can't do
- Regard data reflects the canon's own history of attention, which recorded some traditions and some writers far more thoroughly than others. The filtered lists inherit that bias and say so.
- Many lists are short of a hundred, because the catalogue does not yet hold a hundred scored books for them. Russia has 79, Poland 66, and the lists for Sweden and Austria have 36 and 32.
- The order is a data ranking with three rules applied: literature lists leave out books that are only nonfiction, no author has more than three books on a list, and literature is ranked ahead of philosophy.
- Lines of descent appear only on lists where the catalogue records enough links between the books, and a link the catalogue is less than even odds on is not drawn.
- Ticks made without an account are kept in that browser only.
Questions people ask
- What are the best books of all time?
- By literary regard — canonical standing, critical acclaim and influence — the top of ReadingRate's list runs to Hamlet, The Divine Comedy, Ulysses, the Iliad and Don Quixote, each with a difficulty score.
- Can I see the best books by women, or from a particular country?
- Yes. There is a list of the best books by women, and lists by country for the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia, Germany, Italy, Japan, Ireland, Canada, Spain, Poland, India, China and Australia, each ranked on literary regard with difficulty scores. Several hold fewer than a hundred books.
- Which great books are easy to read?
- ReadingRate keeps two lists by difficulty: the best books that are easy to read, and the hardest. Both are ranked on literary regard and both show each book's difficulty score and hours.